Prologue
Mike
Something was wrong, Mike could tell. It had been eleven months since El vanished and Will came back. But Will had been gone for a month, something was wrong with him. Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas were at the Arcade playing a game. Dustin was trying to beat Max's high score on a game of pac-man. Mike was very focused on the game for a while, but then he noticed something odd. Will wasn't standing next to Lucas. Mike looked around for a bit but couldn't see him anywhere. He then looked outside and saw Will staring into the distance. Mike walked outside and stood behind Will. He looked for a minute, past Will, trying to see anything he could be looking at. But Mike didn't see anything, nothing but darkness in the distance.
"Will?" Mike said.
"huh?" Will said, turning around to face him.
"You alright?" Mike said, a concerned look on his face.
Will turned around and looked in the distance again, and breathed a sigh of relief.
"Honestly? I'm not sure anymore." Will said.
"What's wrong?" Mike asked.
"I still see it sometimes." Will said.
"See what?" Mike replied.
"The upside-down." Will said.
"Oh." Mike said, a glum look passing over his face.
"You still miss her, don't you?" Will asked.
"Of course I do, I miss her every day." Mike said.
"What would you do, if you had the chance to see her again?" Will asked.
"Anything, I'd make sure that she wouldn't end up hurt, and that she would be safe, or at least as safe as she could be in this town. Why do you ask?" Mike asked.
"Up until today I thought that I was seeing the past, you know my memories." Will explained, "But today something was different, I saw someone who shouldn't have been there, and I saw something that shouldn't have been there. I think I'm seeing the upside-down in real time."
"What did you see?" Mike asked, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
"I saw a huge monster, with multiple heads, and a girl about our age." Will said.
"Can you describe the girl?" Mike asked.
"Yeah, she was wearing a dress, a blue jacket, sneakers, and she had brown eyes and short brown hair." Will said.
"That's Eleven!" Mike exclaimed.
"I thought so, if she really is alive then she may also be trapped right now." Will said.
"She's trapped?" Mike asked.
"Well I think the only gate in town has closed, so there isn't a way back yet." Will said.
"What do you mean yet?" Mike said.
"I think I may be able to open a gate to the upside-down." Will said grimly.
"A gate to the upside-down? Are you insane?" Mike exclaimed, "Last time you were there you almost died, we don't even know how changed you are. How would you even make a gate to the upside-down?"
"I never told you the full story of what happened to me when I was in the upside-down." Will said, "I learned things, how to survive. But the upside-down changed me, not just physically but mentally as well."
"What does that mean?" Mike asked.
"I can, do things now." Will said, "Things I couldn't do before."
"Like what?" Mike asked.
"Like this." Will said.
He closed his eyes, and titled his head back. His head then snapped forward and he opened his eyes, they were now a blood red color. He extended his right hand and lifted a cup off the table behind Mike, without touching it, then after a few seconds he put it down. He closed his eyes again and once he opened them they were back to their normal color.
"Whoa." Mike said.
"Yeah, I've been able to do that ever since" Will stopped to cough, then continued "ever since I came back."
"What else can you do?" Mike asked, slightly excited.
"I'm not sure, but I think I can focus on the visual connection to make a temporary gate." Will said.
"So you think you can open a temporary gate into the upside-down?" Mike asked.
"Yeah, and I think I can find your friend." Will said.
"You think you can find her?" Mike asked, his voice sounding full of hope.
"Yeah, but I will need your help." Will said.
"What do you need?" Mike asked.